Odyssey 5.206 · Book 5, lines 206–210
The offer of immortality
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εἴ γε μὲν εἰδείης σῇσι φρεσὶν ὅσσα τοι αἶσα κήδεʼ ἀναπλῆσαι, πρὶν πατρίδα γαῖαν ἱκέσθαι, ἐνθάδε κʼ αὖθι μένων σὺν ἐμοὶ τόδε δῶμα φυλάσσοις ἀθάνατός τʼ εἴης, ἱμειρόμενός περ ἰδέσθαι σὴν ἄλοχον, τῆς τʼ αἰὲν ἐέλδεαι ἤματα πάντα.
But if you knew in your heart how many woes it is your fate to fill up, before you reach your native land, you would stay right here with me, keeping this house, and you would be immortal, though longing to see your wife, for whom you yearn all your days.
Word by word
The setting
The heart of Book 5: Calypso tells Odysseus that if he knew the sufferings fate still holds before Ithaca, he would stay — keep her house and become deathless — for all his longing for his wife.
A note on this passage
This is the offer the whole book turns on. If he could see, she says, the full tally of woes fate still measures out before he reaches home, he would stay here, keep her house, and be made immortal — however much he longs to see his wife. The condition is not a bluff: a goddess can actually make him deathless.
The undercurrent is a hero defined by a refusal. She names the one thing she cannot give (Penelope) against the one thing he will not take (eternity), and Odysseus chooses the mortal wife, the aging body, and death at home. Her warning is also true — the storm that nearly kills him is minutes away — which makes the offer generous, not merely seductive. The Odyssey measures its man by the immortality he turns down.
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